After 17 years at the helm of the morning show of ICI Première Québec, Claude Bernatchez is about to bow out. Another 29 shows before the seasoned host, loyal to Radio-Canada for 34 years, leaves his microphone to take on new challenges.
Mr. Bernatchez announced his decision on the air, shortly after 8:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, in a message to his emotional audience. “On June 23, I will be hosting the show for the last time. First hour “, he began, quickly caught up with a sob.
Contrary to his habit, the man of words had prepared a text for the occasion. Another departure from tradition: long silences punctuated his announcement, a rarity in the studio on rue Saint-Jean. The animator had been thinking for a few years about exploring new avenues – to “bouncing back towards a stimulating job”, in his words, “which will [lui] learn a little more about life, about the world”.
Claude Bernatchez leaves when the program he pilots remains unbeatable at the top of the ratings, collecting more than a quarter of the market share on weekdays, from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. The last nine Numéris surveys have devoted First hour at the head of the pack of radio morning shows in the capital.
He admits that after 17 years, the flame was beginning to flicker. “Routine sets in occasionally,” Bernatchez said. I don’t want to become a jaded animator waiting for retirement to come. »
The passion was eroding, the body was getting tired too. “Waking up every morning at 3:30 a.m. which imposes a life of a monk on you, managing fatigue which has become a lifestyle, weekends which are never long enough to arrive fresh and ready for work on Monday morning… I I no longer want to ask my body to give a little more. I know he can do it, but I’m tired. »
A wave of tributes
Claude Bernatchez’s voice resonated on Radio-Canada in 1988, when he began his career in Edmonton. After a detour through Toronto, Montreal and Trois-Rivières, he returned home in 2005, to Quebec City, where he grew up.
A chorus of praise immediately followed the announcement on social media. Mayor Bruno Marchand welcomed the departure of a “morning monument” from the capital, showing his “enormous respect for the man, the host and the rigorous journalist”.
The minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale, Geneviève Guilbault, also underlined the departure of the host. “It’s a whole era that is coming to an end in our Capitale-Nationale,” tweeted the Deputy Prime Minister on Twitter.
I no longer want to ask my body to give a little more. I know he can do it, but I’m tired.
Current and former colleagues of Claude Bernatchez – of which the author of these lines was still a part in November – praised the probity and professionalism of the man. “You have greatly contributed to raising the debates in the Capitale-Nationale”, underlined a former journalist from ICI Québec, Nicolas Vigneault, on Facebook.
In Edmonton, his time at the helm of the local morning show left a memory still cherished by many listeners. “There are people who still talk to me about it, even if it’s been a long time! says Martin Flibotte, a long-time accomplice who knew him around the turn of the 1990s, when Claude Bernatchez was taking his first steps at Radio-Canada.
“I had the luxury, the joy and the happiness of working with him,” says Mr. Flibotte, who praises a generous friend with his colleagues and always respectful of his audience.
“He never did radio to watch and hear himself, he explains, but to talk to people. I’m sure that in his head, if he feels that he no longer has the energy to enter the hearth of his public, he says to himself: “I will not commit the affront of doing so. half.” »
A page turns
Claude Bernatchez landed in Quebec at a time when so-called populist radio stations dominated the airwaves. He and his collaborators were the first to succeed in breaking the hegemony exercised in the early 2000s by these stations which made – for better or for worse – the reputation of the capital.
The radio landscape of the greater Quebec City region has experienced several upheavals in recent weeks. Controversial host Jeff Fillion recently left his microphone at CHOI Radio X. André Arthur, who long reigned on the Quebec airwaves with a vitriolic microphone, died on Sunday.
Claude Bernatchez ended his speech by quoting a sentence once hammered home by his high school English teacher, and which takes on its full meaning today, as he approaches his sixties. “Life is short and the world is big.” Obviously, at 12, we don’t care a bit. […] Today, on the other hand, I have to agree with him. »
Journalists Louise Boisvert and Pierre-Alexandre Bolduc will take turns at the microphone of the morning show this summer. Claude Bernatchez intends to take advantage of the summer break to think about his professional future.